The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life

Listen to The Top if you want to hear from the worlds TOP entrepreneurs on how much they sold last month, how they are selling it, and what they are selling - 7 days a week in 20 minute interviews!
The Top is FOR YOU IF you are:
A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4)
STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7)
An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1)
The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14).
Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.
Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at NathanLatka.com/TheTop

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Shin Sakane. He’s the founder and CEO of Seven Dreamers. Seven Dreamers is daring to create technology that has never been seen in the world. Shin has a PhD in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Delaware.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Path

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Facebook

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Get global experiences, visit so many different countries, cultures...”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:44 – Nathan introduces Shin to the show

02:20 – Seven Dreamers creates technology that the world has not seen yet

02:30 – First product is the fully automated carbon golf shaft

02:35 – Second product is the nascent nasal airway stent

02:58 – There’s no connection between the products

03:16 – Seven Dreamers wanted to develop something that is not yet available anywhere

04:00 – Seven Dreamers was launched in 2011

04:20 – Seven Dreamers has raised over $75M

04:29 – The money was mainly spent on product development

05:05 – The nasal stent currently has more sales than the golf shaft

05:27 – The golf shaft price is $1200 - $120K

05:53 – The most popular model sells for $1800

06:10 – The golf shaft was launched in 2014

06:30 – 400 shafts/month are being sold

07:35 – The way to make a golf shaft

09:06 – Team size

09:45 – 2016 total revenue

10:30 – It took Seven Dreamers 11 years to develop laundroid

11:15 – Seven Dreamers has spent $15M for product development

11:33 – Shin shares how they came up with the idea of laundroid

12:13 – Laundroid was initially limited

12:50 – Laundroid’s price is $15K

13:38 – The 3 products are completely different—from the suppliers to the technologies

14:08 – Most of the product ideas come from Shin

14:43 – The last round they raised

15:03 – Shin shares the valuation of each of their products

15:30 – “Everything counts”

16:12 – The nasal airway stent is currently their biggest money maker

16:25 – Average MRR $1M

16:53 – 2017 goal is $80M

17:07 – Seven Dreamers are working on their sales and marketing

17:14 – “We do our own marketing”

17:34 – Advertising cost

18:40 – Seven Dreamers spent money on sponsoring athletes

19:09 – The number of golf shaft complete sets that have sold

21:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Think outside the box—have a solution to a problem, then create a product.

Study and know your market well so that your product speaks directly to a need.

Todd Olson. He’s the CEO and founder of Pendo, a product experience platform that helps product managers deliver successful products. Before Pendo, Todd served as VP of products at Rally Software Development which he led through its public offering. Todd joins Rally in its acquisition of 6th Sense, the company he founded and served as president and CTO.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great

What CEO do you follow? –Aaron Levie

Favorite online tool? — 15Five

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew more at 21, than I thought I knew”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Todd to the show

02:17 – Pendo provides a solution that helps companies build an application to improve its experience

03:00 – Optimizely uses Pendo to understand the people who are in their trial and onboarding flow

Sahil Arora. He’s an entrepreneur, author, and a guitarist and defies what you think someone his age could do. Tune in to learn his entrepreneurial story, from creating the Vuzelaa Group to jumpstarting Tabverts—a company that broadcasts ads in taxis all over India.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — No

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “You could get a Lamborghini at the age of 10”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:15 – Nathan introduces Sahil to the show

01:35 – Vuzelaa Group is the parent company which Sahil started when he was 16

01:51 – Under Vuzelaa Group, they created Tabverts; a company that broadcasts ads in taxis all over India

02:11 – Tabverts’ pricing

02:45 – Tabverts was launched in 2016

03:06 – Sahil is the sole founder of Vuzelaa Group

03:20 – Sahil shares how he found people on Twitter and got them on board

03:59 – Sahil shares how he convinced them to join

04:55 – Sahil shows Nathan his sample pitch

06:28 – Sahil is 18 now

06:45 – There are around 10K cabs in India with Tabverts’ hardware

06:50 – Sahil shares how he funded Tabverts

07:05 – Sahil spent $100K in the early stage of the business

07:12 – Sahil raised $500K in an equity round

07:32 – The $500K was from a VC based in India

07:50 – The brands that pay Sahil

08:18 – Sahil shares how the brand, Snapdeal, pays him

08:40 – Average pay per second

09:45 – Tabverts’ customers can track their ads’ performance through an app

10:14 – The clicks on the tablet can also be tracked

10:37 – Sahil shares how the ads’ loophole functions

11:00 – Team size

11:08 – MRR is $70K

11:35 – Sahil shares how his team operates

11:56 – Sahil dropped out of high school and won’t go to college

12:26 – Tabverts has a predictive revenue stream

12:35 – Sahil’s future plans for Tabverts

13:18 – How Tabverts deals with the cabs

14:05 – The key metrics Tabverts tracks

14:38 – 2017 goal

14:50 – Sahil shares what he does with the revenue he gets

15:23 – Cost per hardware

15:48 – Sahil shares how their tabs work

16:16 – Tabverts only shows the ads that may be interesting for the people riding in cabs

16:47 – Tabverts is tied up with Uber

16:57 – The amount Tabverts pays Uber

17:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Entrepreneurship knows no age.

Continue to grow your company by investing consistently.

You can find your clientele through social media – you just have to have the right pitch.

Charles Ramsey. He’s the CEO of Sauce Labs and has been in that position since April 2015, and has served as Chief Revenue Officer from February to April 2015. Prior to that, he’s had 25 years of industry experience—he was a venture partner at JMI Equity and held a number of roles at Quest Software, including VP of marketing and sales.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Finding Your North Star

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — No

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I’d become a CEO sooner in my career”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:27 – Nathan introduces Charles to the show

03:03 –SauceLabs has just raised a significant amount,$70M

03:45 –SauceLabs has raised a total of $130M

04:04 – Charles shares how they decide to raise capital

04:14 –SauceLabs checked their ability for an acquisition

04:42 –SauceLabs had great timing

04:54 –SauceLabs does automated testing in the cloud for web app and mobile devices

06:38 –SauceLabs’ market is aboutcontinuous integration and delivery

07:17 –SauceLabs is SaaS based with an annual subscription and self-service

07:58 –SauceLabs has invested in pre-sell and technical support

08:30 – Average transaction fee is$50K annually

08:56 – The fee varies from the number of parallel testings the customer wants

09:20 – The concurrency of 50

09:45 –SauceLabsisgrowingorganically

10:11 –SauceLabs is an 8year old company

10:33 – “The founders started the company with the notion of automated testing from day 1”

10:54 – 3 years ago, a number of ISVs realizedthatthey wanted to leverage selenium

12:03 – One of the founders is still inSauceLabs and all of them are still on the cap table

12:41 – Team size

13:20 –SauceLabs currently has 3500 customers

13:58 –SauceLabs’ 90-day post-transaction clause window

14:17 – Depending on the complexity of the environment, it can require professional services

Dr. Milton Chen. He’s the co-founder and CEO of VSee, and has a PhD from Stanford on the design of video collaboration. Additionally, he was the co-founder of XMPP Video Standard which is now used by Google Talk and Facebook Chat. He has deployed VSee for Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Linkin Park and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Zero to One

What CEO do you follow? –Marc Benioff

Favorite online tool? —Rapportive

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Milton would tell himself not to be as naïve and clueless

Ryan Buckley. He’s a serial entrepreneur, a founder and CEO of Scripted and Toofr. He focuses on solving the problems that marketers and business owners deal with on a daily basis such as connecting businesses with writers.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Rework

What CEO do you follow? –Josh Pigford

Favorite online tool? —HubSpot CRM

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Ryan would tell himself not to be so stressed and just say“yes”as much as possible

Mats Horn. He’s the CEO and founder of the Swedish tech company, Tinitell. Together with a team of Scandinavian industrial designers, telecom experts and engineers, he developed one of the first wearable devices with cellular connectivity for voice and data. Tinitell wrist phone is an ingeniously simple wearable phone for kids with call and smart location features as well as an intuitive, one button, voice guidance interaction.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Sapiens

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Slack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Mats would tell himself to not be in a rush and take life as“unseriously”as possible

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:31 – Nathan introduces Mats to the show

02:12 – Tinitell is a simple mobile phone that kids wear

02:20 – It’s a smart locator for parents

02:35 – Kids can make and receive calls

02:57 – Tinitell is independentfromits smartphone administrators

03:03 – It is like a robot in a simple product

03:13 – The smartphone app is how the parents control what’s in it

03:36 – Tinitell needs to have a SIM card and it is already provided

03:50 – Tinitell is partnered with a telco

04:48 – Tinitell was launched in Kickstarter in 2014

04:54 – Shipping started after a year and a half

05:16 – Tinitell has shipped 15K units

05:30 – Tinitell sold 1,102 units in Kickstarter

05:41 – Tinitell has raised $150K in Kickstarter

05:51 – “It’s tough making the world’s smallest mobile phone”

06:03 – Tinitell has put it in additional$4M for funds

06:18 – “Most money came from VC companies”

06:25 – Tinitell has raised thrice

06:36 – All are equity rounds

06:53 – Mats shares why he raised in smaller rounds

07:35 – In doing smaller rounds, Mats and his team wouldn’tdilute themselves

08:03 – Mats was working as a consultant before Tinitell

08:25 – Mats realized that he wanted his own company

08:29 – Mat’s idea of Tinitell

09:15 – Team size is 30

09:25 – Average number of customers

09:43 – The critical numbers of Mats

10:12 – Mats looks at the conversion rate and general market activity

10:50 – Tinitell’s competition

11:20 – What people should look at in conversion rate

11:40 – Tinitell has 4 colors

12:03 – The bestsellers are the darker colors

12:36 – Markup vs. cost

13:49 – Mats shares about making a physical product

15:15 – Mats shares how he finds his suppliers

15:32 – “I knew I had to go to China”

15:48 – Matshas to have anetwork of suppliers

16:29 – Mats reached out to everyone he knows who could possibly help him

18:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Know your numbers and track them consistently.

Your network can be your advantage in sourcing and creating your product.

Peter Schlecht. He’s the founder and CEO of The SaaS Co whose aim is to change sales through artificial intelligence as they have launched their new product, Lisa. He’s a 30-year old from Germany—a poker and e-sports playing, politician who became an entrepreneur.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Der Weg zum erfolgreichen Unternehmer

What CEO do you follow? –Felix Staeritz

Favorite online tool? —OneTap

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Stop earlier with politicians, don’t do your masters and study entrepreneurship earlier”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:15 – Nathan introduces Peter to the show

01:37 – Peter makes more money in entrepreneurship than being a politician

01:58 – The SaaS Co is an agency for B2B lead generation

01:55 – The SaaS Co is subscription based

02:06 – The SaaS Co’s focus is Lisa

02:14 – Lisa is a bot for salespeople

02:18 – Lisa reads and replies to your email

02:52 – Lisa doesn’t delete emails and won’t reply if she can’t find an answer to an email

03:08 – The SaaS Co was founded in July, 2014

03:17 – First year revenue

03:22 – The SaaS Co was selling the service of full-sales for tech companies

Christof Wittig. He’s a serial, software entrepreneur and investor. Currently, he’s the founder and CEO of Hornet Networks, the world’s second largest gay social network and is a managing partner of Strive, based in San Francisco. He’s an investor and board member of various companies including Enish, Metago, KeepSafe, VirtaHealth, Black Medicine, Movie Pilot, Box Fish and App Annie. He has been active in the US, Germany, and throughout Asia.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Zero to One

What CEO do you follow? –Sami Inkinen

Favorite online tool? —Capshare.com

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Christof wished he told himself to be bold,that hedidn’tneed a degree, and to followhisdreams

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:19 – Nathan introduces Christof to the show

03:09 – Strive and Hornet came at the same time to Christof

03:32 – Hornet started as a side project

03:50 – Christof exited Servo Software before Hornet

04:00 – Hornet is Christof’s first consumer business

04:10 – Servo Software was launched in 2004

05:02 – Christof sold Servo software in 2010

05:20 – Hornet’s capitalcamefrom thatexit

05:48 – Christof is now 48

05:58 – Nathan hadSean Howell, Hornet’s co-founderinEpisode 440

06:20 – Sean focused on marketing

06:50 – Sean and Christof are running it together

07:10 – Hornet had a subscription model and premium option

07:50 – Hornet’s revenue is 2/3 from subscription and 1/3 from ads

08:00 – Hornet’s future revenue model

08:28 – GHI

09:02 – Hornet raised their $8M in theirSeries A

10:05 – Hornet’s focus is the advertising revenue

10:46 – “Our focus is to get more engagement”

10:57 – Engagement is measured through sessions

11:12 – Peak days

11:30 – User base

11:41 – 3M monthly active and 1.5M daily active

12:09 – The key metrics to track the number of sessions

12:30 – Christof shares aboutTinder

13:16 – Hornet sells CPM and provides premium exposure

14:00 – Hornet has a feed model to drive more organic traffic

14:34 – Hornet has the following features

15:20 – Hornet’spublished price for CPM

15:56 – The number of advertisers currently working with Hornet

16:28 – Hornet uses TFP for their ads

17:10 – Hornet has the largest gay media newsroom in the USA

17:30 – The story feed makes the interaction in the gay community easier

18:05 – Christof shares where they spend the $8M

18:25 – Hornet also spends in marketing

18:39 – Christof wants users to understand that Hornet isn’t just about dating

19:00 – User growth

19:30 – Hornet takes the new concept of the gay app to the next level

20:14 – Hornet is about creating a new digital space for the gay community

21:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

They gay community needs a place where it’s not just about dating, but having interactions with the whole community.

The focus isn’t always on the number of users, specially if you’re driving traffic well.

Chris Golec. He’s the CEO and founder of Demandbase. Chris is an entrepreneur and prior to starting Demandbase, founded one of the most successful B2B software and data solutions in the late 90s called Supplybase. With previous positions at GE and DuPont, Chris uses his wealth of experience to position Demandbase as one of the most rapidly expanding B2B marketing companies in the space.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A

What CEO do you follow? –Keith Krach

Favorite online tool? —AmazonandSkype

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Go for it sooner”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:22 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show

02:10 – Demandbase is a marketing technology company focused on B2B marketers

Andy Lürling and his business partner, Menno Bischops. Andy has over 15 years of experience in the startup world and is truly a serial entrepreneur. He has tons of experience in corporate and the corporate environment including strategy, business development and product development in entertaining and series gaming, VR, AR and online applications. He and Menno are working on a company called VRee.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Exponential Organization- Andy

What CEO do you follow? –Andy Lürling

Favorite online tool? —Google MapsandGoogle Docs

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Go for it—just do it”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:21 – Nathan introduces Andy and Menno to the show

02:05 –LUMO Labsis a 2-year accelerator

03:30 – LUMOlabs is all capital at this point

04:27 – The size of the funds that LUMOLabs has contributed

05:08 – The number of investment rounds LUMOLabs has made

05:20 – Official launch of LUMO Labs

06:30 – Menno shares whatVReedoes

07:00 – The full-body VR experience

07:26 – The VR suits, headset and goggles are wireless

08:05 – It is like augmented laser tag

08:42 – VRee also offers e-sports

09:18 – The capital VRee has raised

09:50 – The grant is non-dilutive

10:05 – Menno shares how they earn from VRee

10:29 – VRee is currently showcasing what their platform can offer

10:43 – VRee has revenue, but it’snot substantial yet

11:11 – VRee is usually usedinpop-up events

11:30 – VRee is in current talks with VR arcades for permanent installation

Gary Fowler. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Findo, a smart search across multiple platforms for email, files, and folders. Gary has over 23 years of startup experience and is an award-winning CEO, a senior executive, a speaker with over 7 technologies startup and a successful IPO for the company CKSW. Gary is known as the go-to startup CEO that gets stuff done.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Think and Grow Rich

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? —Intercom

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Never

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Gary wished he could look back and spendmore timegettingdeeply involved with his first startup

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:34 – Nathan introduces Gary to the show

02:08 – Gary shares whatFindois

02:15 – The challenge that we have nowadays is thelarge, vastamount of information that we have

Shashank Murali. He’s a BITS Pilani alumni. He’s a co-founder and CEO at TapChief – a platform to seek advice from industry professionals. Previously, he built and sold Edvice, an on-demand tutoring app, to HashLearn. He had a product for Hashlearn before he decided to set on a path to democratize knowledge sharing with TapChief. Apart from startups and tech, Shashank enjoys cricket, psychedelic music, and swears by Pink Floyd.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Everything Store

What CEO do you follow? –Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Favorite online tool?–Trello

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To persist more”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:25 – Nathan introduces Shashank to the show

02:11 – Shashank shares whatTapChiefis

02:25 – TapChief charges from the expert’s pay

02:36 – TapChief is similartoClarity.fm

02:44 – Shashank shares how TapChief is different from Clarity

03:14 – TapChief has a various of offerings

03:25 – TapChief is a marketplace

03:39 – The 2 sides of TapChief:

03:45 – Experts ask for a consultation charge and TapChief gets a fee from that

Sushma Sharma, the CEO of Konversai. She’s a lawyer turned entrepreneur. She has law degrees from The University of Oxford and Columbia University and has worked in two prominent Wall Street law firms and set up a department of practical law at City University of Hong Kong. Sushma has taught thousands of students and seen some the most privileged humans as well as some of the least privileged in her life journey spanning 3 continents to where she has lived and worked over the last 15 years. Konversai was born as her solution to the problems facing mankind today.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Slack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t doubt yourself and just keep doing what you’re doing. There’s a time and place for everything”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:30 – Nathan introduces Sushma to the show

03:19 – Konversai is a social conversation platform

03:28 – Sushma shares the types of conversations in Konversai

04:43 – Konversai’s focus is the knowledge from personal experience

04:21 – Sushma’s philosophy is “nothing valuable is free”

04:25 – Konversai has a credit system

04:33 – The charge is .50 cents for one month for creating a box in Konversai

04:54 – “I want to make people feel accountable for what they’re putting up”

05:25 – Sushma shares how they make revenue from a paid conversation

06:09 – Konversai gets 10% from the amount paid

06:36 – The seeker is the one who pays the service

07:02 – There are 2 sides of the business:the seeker and the provider

07:22 – Konversai has under a thousand current providers

08:00 – The number of buyers

08:19 – Sushma’s target was to get the providers as well as the buyers, too

08:40 – The traction has been quite slow

09:21 – Sushma explains why they have to useStripe

09:25 – Konversai is a global company and the currency has to be considered

10:02 – Some users are quite hesitant to fill out the Stripe sign-up form

11:10 – Konversai is only 3 months old

11:40 – Konversai has raised $1.3M in a seed round,in November

12:20 – It is a convertible note/safe

12:42 – Average order value

13:30 – Current revenue

13:46 – “It is growing every month”

15:21 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Nothing valuable is free.

The way you win is by doing things consistently.

Don’t doubt yourself and keep doing what you’re doing—there’s a time and place for everything.

Michael Kaplan. He’s the CEO and founder of Taivaco which is a media technology company. He’s also the former director of marketing at Sanyo and was appointed at San Francisco Water Bay Front Committee. Michael speaks Chinese, French and Japanese. He attended The University of Redlands, Waseda University in Tokyo, George Mason University and Chinese Culture University.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –It’s Not My Department

What CEO do you follow? –John CleeseandKen Okuyama

Favorite online tool? —Any.do

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “The more you listen to other people, the more success findsyou” and “Be a nice person”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:28 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show

02:07 – Michael shares why January 20th is a special day

03:15 – Taivaco was set out to solve an invisible problem and ended up solving more problems

Olivier Magnan-Saurin. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Fidzup which provides innovation retargeting solutions for brick-and-mortar businesses such as retail chains and shopping centers. Olivier founded Fidzup right after school, in between school, and a little bit of freelancing works.

Will Dinkel. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Nova. Prior to founding Nova, Will developed his passion for enterprise sales while working in various technology and sales roles at CloudFlare and HP. Will studied engineering in Harvard Business School.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Presenting to Win

What CEO do you follow? –Travis Kimmel

Favorite online tool?–Apple Notes

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—“I try”

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish my 20-year old self was more ambitious”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Will to the show

02:08 – Nova AI is a sales product that uses AI to help set appointments more effectively

02:25 – Nova helps sales reps, they don’tnecessarilyget leads

02:52 – Novacreatespersonalized emails and mergedtemplates

03:08 – Nova charges per seat

03:30 – “What we do is very unique”

03:39 – Nova is a smart,workflow product

04:08 – Average pay per seat is $150

04:28 – Nova started in 2015

05:01 – Nova’s co-founder is fromMIT

05:15 – Team size

05:40 – Will shares howit’s likein San Francisco

06:00 – Nova has raised $2.2M

06:20 –Salesforce Venturesis one of Nova’s investors

06:54 – The space is getting bigger and bigger

07:15 – Will shares why he raised and went to YC

07:50 – Nova just crossed 100 customers

08:10 – Average seat number per customer

08:40 – Nova is now looking into a bigger number of seats per customer

08:55 – Nova has around a thousand sales reps using them

09:15 – Will’s focus is to make sure the team is functioning well

10:20 – Average MRR

10:45 – Growth rate target in 2017

10:51 – Will is looking into adding additional peopletothe team, 3 per class

11:51 – Nova uses their own wrinkle for SDR

12:10 – Gross customer churn

12:35 – People are mostly happy with Nova

12:55 – Nova’s paid marketing

13:47 – How do you beat a company like Yesware?

14:05 – Focus on what you do best and don’t get dragged into trying todoeverything that everyone else does

16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Focus on what YOU do best—you will lose when you focus on what others are doing.

Offer something unique and it will make you stand out amongst the crowd.

Nathan interviews Patrick O'Luanaigh. He started as a programmer and designer at Codemasters 20 years ago, working on micro machines V3. Prior to founding nDreams, in 2006, he was a creative director at Eidos where he was responsible for the design and gameplay of all the titles there including the well-known Tomb Raider Legend and Hitman Blood Money. nDreams is now 50 people strong and pivoted to solely focusing on virtual reality 3 years ago. nDreams has launched 6 VR titles to date.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Chimp Paradox

What CEO do you follow? –Elon MuskandBrendan Iribe

Favorite online tool? —Box

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Life is too short to play it safe, you gotta take your risk. It’s so much more exciting even though it is scary, you just gotta do it. Be brave!”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:18 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show

02:07 – The greatest challenge of VR (virtual reality)at the moment is the limited number of hardware available

02:16 – “We are still figuring out how to make the very best games in the experience of VR”

02:36 –nDreams’ game that has generated the most income isPerfect Beach

Allan Wille. He was on The Top on December 12, 2016, Episode 506. His company, Klipfolio, raised $7.9M in the past and has grown to 7000 paying customers. They create dashboard software for companies who want to monitor their business processes. Klipfolio is into something incredible, tune in as Allan shares about it on today’s episode.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –

What CEO do you follow? –

Favorite online tool? —

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? –

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:22 – Nathan introduces Allan to the show

02:52 – Klipfolio is an online and cloudbased, and they createreal-time dashboard software forSMBs

Mike Cook. He founded XOR Data Exchange to bring privacy and accountability back to data management. Today, his organization works with the nation’s largest financial institutions to fight fraud and manage risk. You might have never seen Mike presenting the newest consumer tech, but rest assured every digital entity in America is safer under his watchful eye.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –How to Win Friends and Influence People

What CEO do you follow? –Sam Yagan

Favorite online tool? —Periscope

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That you should go to anger management”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Mike to the show

02:10 – Mike mentions how XOR Data Exchange works

02:54 – Mike wanted to create a company where financial institutions can share their data with one another

03:16 – XOR Data Exchange is a B2B model

03:21 – XOR Data Exchange will eventually help consumers

04:04 – Mike shares how XOR Data Exchange will work in between companies

04:31 – Companies like AIG and JP Chase Morgan store data

05:32 – XOR Data Exchange changes the mentality of the pipe

06:25 – XOR Data Exchange generates revenue by building pre-exchanges

07:17 – XOR Data Exchange chargestransactionfees based on return data

07:38 – XOR Data Exchange is a pay-as-you-go model

07:43 – XOR Data Exchange is building a new exchange focusing on financial services companies where companies can exchange fraud information

08:10 – XOR Data Exchange was launched in January 2014

08:20 – First year revenue is nothing

08:27 – Mike put in his own money in XOR Data Exchange

08:34 – Mike sold his company ID Analytics to fund XOR Data Exchange

08:40 – Mike sold ID Analytics in 2012, which he started in 2000

08:56 – Mike was 17 when he started ID Analytics

09:15 – Mike had 2 other co-founders

09:26 – Mike tried to work in a big company after his exit

09:56 – Mike has raised $6M and will close $2M, today

10:53 – The last round was in August 2015

11:22 – Most of the money from the current round is from the previous investors

11:36 – Mike shares about his Angel investors

12:40 – “Raising a Series B in this environment is not the easiest thing to do”

12:51 – Mike explains what he means by this

13:20 – XOR Data Exchange is working with big customers

13:45 – “If you work with the top 6, 7, 8 financial services companies, you’re really covering 90% of America”

14:05 – XOR Data Exchange has dozens of companies

14:23 – Team size

14:26 – XOR Data Exchange is not yet cashflow positive

15:05 – 2017 goal

15:25 – Most of the XOR DataExchangeemployees are tech and based in Austin

17:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Reinvest your money in something that you believe in.

The financial service space isn’t the easiest environment to raise a Series B.

If you work with the top 6, 7, or 8 financial services companies, you’re really covering 90% of America.

Alex Fishman, the founder and CEO ofBugsee, a bug reporting tool for iOs and Android.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Hard Thing About Hard Things

What CEO do you follow? – Henry Worth

Favorite online tool? – Gmail

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—I wish

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "You want start playing in the startup ecosystem as early as possible when you have less commitments and less things to worry about"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:18 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show

01:31 – Bugsee is bug reporting tool for iOs and Android

01:51 – Bugsee provides video network and blog, leading out to the event

02:15 – You will not only know that the app crashed, but what led it to crash

02:50 – Bugsee is a SaaS model and they price based on the app size

03:19 – For an app that has 500K users, it will cost $500

03:40 – Bugsee provides different levels of value

04:33 – Average customer pay per month

04:45 – Bugsee started in January 2016

05:01 – Bugsee started charging in December 2016

05:20 – Bugsee has 1100 sign ups and 30% have used Bugsee

06:22 – Alex mentions why he calls users as customers, too

06:40 – Most customers are given free tier to continue using Bugsee

07:11 – New customers use the plan available

07:30 – The limitations of Bugsy's free plan

08:52 – Number of paying customers

09:20 – Bugsee is funded by K9 Ventures

09:33 – Bugsee has raised $1.2M

09:40 – Bugsee had a previous failed attempt

09:53 – The cap table had been reset by Bugsee

10:43 – The previous attempt was in July 2015

10:57 – Team size

11:05 – The team is remote

11:24 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Users are also customers, regardless of whether you sell them on something or not.

Having a failed attempt does NOT mean you should give up.

Start playing in startup field as early as possible and while you're still free of obligations.

Magnus Åström. He's the CEO and founder ofNow Interact, a machine-learning, SaaS platform for omni channel optimization. He's also the founder of InLead, a business consultant and operations company which was sold in 2010 and prior to that, he was founder of Primelog, a transportation management SaaS platform which was sold in 2006.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Blue Ocean Strategy

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —LinkedIn

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "It's all about focus"